


Wasteland

by pine_storm_season



Series: loosely canon writings [5]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:53:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29806626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pine_storm_season/pseuds/pine_storm_season
Summary: when tommy dies, he finds wilbur. or, more accurately, wilbur finds him.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: loosely canon writings [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191365
Comments: 5
Kudos: 147





	Wasteland

**Author's Note:**

> this document was titled "GHOST TOMMY WHILE ITS STILL RELEVANT" lol
> 
> warnings: referenced abuse, detailed descriptions of the injuries that killed tommy, general mild unreality tw because of how i write the place dead people go

For all that Wilbur wanted to go—and though he was happy to be gone—sometimes he couldn't help but look back at the world and watch.

Now was not one of those times.

A cat had appeared first. Unremarkable, although a bit sad, he had thought. Poor thing. Perhaps a stray skeleton arrow had caught it, he figured, from the dried blood on the back of its head.

He crouched down to greet it, and it sniffed at his hand before padding on, like all the animals do.

Wilbur had wondered where they were going, back at the beginning. Because every animal that arrived padded off in a certain direction, like they had a compass guiding them on.

Neither he nor Schlatt had followed them. _Cowardice,_ Schlatt called it. _Common sense,_ Wilbur had corrected.

Maybe a little bit of both.

A splash of gold sprang into existence, hovering in the air, streaked with dark russet. Dully, he wondered who had lost a life this time.

Dream was a dark grey-green speckled with bronze, he knew. He’d watched with pride as Tommy took two of his lives in rapid succession.

Quackity, perhaps? Jack Manifold?

The color solidified into a gold silhouette. Dark russet was splattered across the figure’s head and chest, and patches of it were across their whole body.

Wilbur took an unconscious step back. Who had only one life left? Tubbo, Phil, Quackity, Tommy—

 _No_.

The figure was not Tommy. They couldn't be. He refused to believe it.

They solidified further, into a person, and fell hard into the snow. Wilbur was at his side instantly.

“Tommy,” he said, fingers skimming over the injuries. _Holy fuck_. “Tommy, Tommy, what happened?”

Tommy blinked up at him, limp in the snow. His left eye was held shut with dried blood, and the coating went up his forehead and into his hair, which was a tangled mess darkened with blood. There was a bruise on his cheek in the shape of a hand.

 _“Tommy,”_ Wilbur said, almost afraid to touch him. This was his little brother, his Tommy, his longest friend.

This was a broken, limp, bloodied body lying in the snow.

Tommy made a whimper-like sound in his throat, and lifted one trembling hand a few inches off the ground. Then he let it fall.

“Oh, Tommy,” he murmured. He felt sick.

Tommy made a two-toned sound, higher in the first half. His mouth opened, just a little, and Wilbur thought he could see a missing tooth.

“Tommy,” he said again, his fingers hovering over Tommy’s chest. There was dried blood on his shirt, too, and he felt sick at just how hurt his brother was.

Schlatt had no visible injuries. Wilbur had the one sword wound in his chest, straight through his heart.

Tommy was covered in blood and bruises.

“What happened?” he breathed.

Tommy just looked at him with one wide eye. Then it closed, and his chest rose and fell with a shuddering sigh.

“No, hey Tommy, c’mon, let's get you inside, okay?”

He reached out and put a hand beneath Tommy's left shoulder to lift him, and the boy flinched hard. His eye flew open again, and fear was written clear on his face as he cried out.

“It's okay, it's okay,” Wilbur murmured, “it's just me, okay? You're safe now, you're safe. Hey, Tommy. You're okay.”

He was nearly babbling, he realized, and made an effort to stop. _You’re okay,_ when Tommy was more battered and bruised than Wilbur had ever seen him.

But something must have registered in Tommy, because he let his eye fall closed and went limp again. Carefully, Wilbur lifted him—Tommy whimpered, but didn't fight—and carried him back towards the rough little house he'd made in his time dead.

Wilbur knew, logically, that the wounds would heal to scars within a few days. He remembered having to take care of himself, remembered having to patch himself up and wash off his wounds with strips torn from the bottom of his coat and river water.

…It wasn’t a true river, he knew. To Schlatt the place they lived looked different; autumn instead of winter, grassland instead of a thin scattering of forest. He had no doubt it would look different for Tommy, too.

But the river water had worked to wash off the blood in Wilbur’s first few days, so he could hope it would work for Tommy, too.

Tommy’s head rested on his shoulder, and Wilbur could hear the soft sounds he was making in the back of his throat. Not quite words, but if they had been, Wilbur had a feeling they would be pleas.

“It's okay, Tommy,” he murmured, and felt the boy shudder in his arms. “It's okay, you’re safe.”

The house was made out of spruce logs and oak wood, which Wilbur knew looked the same for Schlatt, because he’d scoffed at the choice of building materials. _It's not like I have many supplies,_ he retorted, and Schlatt just laughed. Dick.

It was warmer inside the house, even if the outside wasn’t nearly as cold as true winter, and Wilbur felt Tommy relax slightly as the warmth washed over them both. His breaths were slow and shallow against the crook of Wilbur’s neck.

“I'm gonna put you down now, ‘kay?” he murmured, and then bent to settle Tommy on the grey sofa.

He reached up weakly, and Wilbur crouched down next to him, allowing him to hold onto his sleeve.

“I gotta get some water and cloth to clean you off,” he said softly.

Tommy shook his head, and then screwed up his face in discomfort. He made a noise in the back of his throat, and Wilbur sighed.

“I'll come right back,” he said, “I promise. Does that help?”

Slowly, Tommy nodded. Wilbur stood, gently prying Tommy’s hand off his sleeve, and filled a bowl with warmish water, as well as tucking a few soft brown cloths in his pocket. He returned to see Tommy watching the doorways warily.

“What happened to you?” he wondered aloud, as he crouched down next to Tommy again.

Tommy made a pitiful sound, and then shook his head.

“It's okay,” Wilbur soothed, brushing a hand over Tommy’s shoulder. “I’m just gonna wash off the blood, yeah?”

He nodded slowly.

“Are you hurt anywhere other than your head?”

He nodded again, his hand drifting up to touch the right side of his chest.

Wilbur had never seen Tommy so subdued.

“Okay,” he said. “In that case, one of us is probably gonna have to take your shirt off so I can see how badly you’re hurt.”

The Tommy he knew would’ve made a joke about that. Instead, he just closed his good eye and nodded slowly.

Wilbur bit his lip as he considered. _Could_ Tommy get hurt worse, if something happened?...No, Schlatt had tried to kill him that one time, and it had done nothing.

“Okay,” Wilbur said, “I'm gonna help you sit up, and then I'm gonna take off your shirt so I can see how badly you're hurt there.”

Tommy didn’t respond, but when Wilbur slipped a hand under his back and lifted him into a sitting position, he stayed there on his own. Carefully, slowly, Wilbur lifted the thin, bloodied fabric up, and Tommy helped by slowly slipping his arms out of the sleeves.

His chest and back were covered in a mottling of bruises, and there was a large patch over his ribs that made Wilbur think at least one of them was broken. Tiny cuts were scattered across his back.

“Oh, _Tommy,”_ he whispered.

Tommy screwed up his face and leveled a one-eyed glare at Wilbur. He laughed in surprise.

“Okay, okay, right. You can lie down again, by the way.”

Tommy fell more than lay down, letting out a pained cry when he landed, and then going still and silent again.

Wilbur dipped one of the cloths in water and carefully began to rub tiny circles over the bloody patches on Tommy’s chest. He let out a hiss of pain whenever Wilbur touched a bruise, but after a few minutes, most of the blood on his chest was gone, revealing no actual cuts.

Wilbur hesitated, staring at the blood on Tommy’s head. Head wounds tended to bleed a lot, he knew, and it's not like Tommy could get hurt more…but Wilbur was scared to see the damage there.

“Can you sit up again, and turn to face away from me?” he asked.

Tommy nodded, grasping into Wilbur’s coat to pull himself upright. Carefully, Wilbur began to wash off the cuts on his back. He noticed they were all jagged and rough, and thought back to the time when Tubbo had fallen down a steep hill into a patch of sharp, gravel-like rocks. These cuts looked a bit like that.

Tommy had stopped making pained sounds, and Wilbur didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing. Either it was no longer hurting—unlikely—or his body had shut down a step further.

 _Well,_ Wilbur thought wryly, _it's not like shock can kill him._

He was listing back and to the side, and Wilbur steadied him with a hand on his lower back. Tommy flinched a second later.

“Those will have healed by tomorrow, I think,” he said quietly. “I think only bad wounds take more than a day to heal.”

Tommy didn't respond, but allowed Wilbur to lay him back down.

Wilbur carefully began rubbing tiny circles with another wet cloth at the blood on his forehead, and Tommy made a low sound in the back of his throat when Wilbur reached his hairline.

“Okay, I’ll come back to that in a bit,” he said softly, and shifted to cleaning the blood off his eye. His eyelid fluttered and squeezed itself shut as Wilbur worked, but after a minute or two, it was clean and Tommy could open that eye again.

He did, looking at Wilbur with a tired sort of expression on his face.

Wilbur swallowed the lump in his throat.

“Almost done, okay?” he said.

Tommy shook his head.

“…Do you not want me to clean your head wound?”

A nod.

“Because it hurts?”

Another nod, and then a tiny shrug.

“I gotta see how bad the damage is, Tommy,” he said gently. “It'll heal in a few days, and then it won't hurt—nearly as much, but it'll be much harder to see what went wrong.”

He made a tiny whine in the back of his throat, but allowed Wilbur to drip water into his hair and start cleaning of the blood.

Wilbur had never been squeamish, but he felt sick when he saw the damage to Tommy’s head.

Whoever has done that to him had left a _dent_ in his head, covered in bloodied, scraped skin. Wilbur shuddered just looking at it.

“…Tommy,” he said, voice high and breathy, “do you know what happened to your head?”

Tommy nodded, and then shrugged.

“Not—not who did it, just what happened,” he said.

Tommy’s mouth quirked to the side, and then he shook his head.

“You have…” Wilbur had to take a steadying breath. “You have a dent in your skull, Tommy.”

Tommy blinked at him, then shook his head again. Then he shrugged and raised his left hand to clutch Wilbur’s sleeve.

“Can you talk?” he asked softly.

Tommy shrugged.

“Okay, I’ll—I’ll get you paper and a pen, and then you can write down whatever you want to say, okay?”

Tommy nodded slowly and let go of Wilbur’s sleeve.

He returned and handed Tommy the paper and pen, and slowly, Tommy began to write something. When he was finished, he held it up to show Wilbur.

_am I dead_

Pain lanced through Wilbur’s chest, and his hand came up to cover the scar over his heart.

“Yeah,” he said, very softly. “You’re dead, Tommy.”

Tommy shook his head viciously, putting the paper down to write again.

 _youre lying,_ he wrote. The words were messier, scrawled underneath the others. _youre lying Im not dead I passed out and now Im dreaming_

There was an ache in Wilbur’s chest, and it wasn't his scar.

“Tommy,” he said, and his voice broke.

Tommy shook his head again, reaching out and shoving Wilbur back. _Im not dead Im not dead Im not dead you bitch dick motherfucker Im not dead Im not dead youre lying youre lying fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck y_

He ran out of space on the paper. Wilbur didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

“Tommy,” he began, reaching out. Tommy slapped his hand away, a vicious, scared snarl on his face.

He flipped the paper over. _Im not dead I towered up in logsted but I didnt die I survived I survived I won tubbo didnt die I beat dream hes in prison I won I won I was safe I DIDNT FUCKING DIE_

The paper ripped. A tear rolled down Tommy’s cheek and landed on the paper the ink bleeding out in a little splatter. He furiously wiped at his face, a hiss of pain escaping him when he pressed the bruise on his cheek.

“Tommy,” Wilbur said again.

Tommy threw himself at Wilbur and hit him, jagged, pained sounds tearing from his throat along with sobs. He wasn't quite yelling words, just gibberish-type sounds, but Wilbur didn't have to try to figure out what Tommy was feeling.

Tears streamed down Tommy’s face, and Wilbur wrapped his arms around him. He fought, throwing himself against Wilbur’s body, but slowly the fight drained out of him and he went limp, his body shaking with sobs.

“Oh, Tommy,” Wilbur murmured, holding him.

Tommy shuddered and let out a thin, high-pitched wail.

“Oh, Tommy,” he murmured again, rocking him slowly back and forth. “I know. I know.”

They sat there on the floor until Tommy’s sobs died down, and his breaths evened out against Wilbur’s neck. Wilbur opened his coat and wrapped it around Tommy, who whimpered and pressed the right side of his head into Wilbur’s shoulder.

“I got you,” he murmured. “You're okay.”

Tommy was warm and solid in his arms, and he was still trembling badly.

“Who did this to you?” Wilbur asked gently.

Tommy shuddered and slowly pushed away from Wilbur, disentangling himself from the hug. He found a small spot between two words and carefully, slowly, wrote _dream_ before dropping the pen.

“Dream did that to you?”

Tommy nodded.

“He…took all your lives, holy fuck.”

Tommy’s face crumpled and he flung himself at Wilbur again, clinging to him tightly. His whole body shuddered and trembled, and Wilbur slowly curled his fingers through the short hair on the back of Tommy's head, stroking his hand up and down.

Tommy shuddered again, and Wilbur looked down at him to realize with horror and shock that he could see through Tommy, just a little bit.

“Tommy?” he said, holding him tighter as though that would do anything at all.

Tommy looked up at him with fearful blue eyes, and pressed himself closer to Wilbur. He got more and more transparent, skin flickering gold streaked with russet, and then he vanished. Wilbur was alone.

He crumpled on the floor and sobbed.

**Author's Note:**

> a few notes on this that i didn't manage to fit into the story itself:
> 
> \- tommy vanishing was because dream revived him. it is unclear what dream demanded in return.  
> \- tommy cannot speak because the part of your brain that controls speech (the moving-your-mouth-part anyway) is roughly in the front left part of your brain, and it happened to get damaged from what dream did to kill him  
> \- days are not proper "days" in the afterlife; wilbur refers to things taking several days, but his days are not the same time as schlatt's. neither of them pay close enough attention to the living world to know, but they could tell time properly by there  
> \- they can see the living world through their mind's eye  
> \- the afterlife looks different to everyone because no one's mind can properly process it, so each person's brain fills it in with a different image  
> \- wilbur got most of his things by thinking them into existence. he tried to build a house normally and got frustrated and ended accidentally causing it to spring into being and he was just like "that's a thing i can do??" lol


End file.
